Driving Business Growth Through Simple Yet Effective Marketing Techniques

anyway welcome to today's msps and conversation uh we are talking marketing uh driving business growth through simple yet effective marketing techniques so uh We've Got Crystal and Mitch joining us uh and we have lots of questions to run through probably not enough time we never do have enough time um but as always this is recorded so please feel free if you do have to jump off um please feel free to share it afterwards as well we cut this up into a Youtube video um podcast it's available on Spotify and everything else um if you have questions please feel free to drop them in the chat and we will try and answer them as we go um if you think we are talking absolute craziness let us know that as well all right so very quickly as always an introduction to hosted Network hosted network is a wholesale cloud and Telco provider for Aussie msps we started as an MSP ourselves so our value proposition to you is that we think like an MP we are 100% wholesale and we have no customers at all we're entirely feedback driven our whole business has been built based off feedback from over 250 Aussie msps and quite frankly we like to get done so um you know if you would like to talk feel free to reach out to us after this but we are not here to talk about hosted Network we are here to hear from our wonderful panelists Crystal Mitch thank you for joining us no worries no worries Crystal could I get you to introduce yourself yeah sure so it's always feels a little bit funny but my name is Crystal Jameson sit in the little corner and on the screen um so I run a we like to call it a marketing agency but it's not a true agency called one little seed which essentially offers marketing manager as a service for businesses in the it channel so we have a number of msps on our books uh disclosure Mitch does happen to be one of those so we have supported Mitch and his business for 4 and a half years I feel like it gets a bit murky and you know you go are we still really doing this but but we are so um I've been in the IT industry my entire career I've worked in distribution I've worked in vendors and I've worked in the channel so you know that is our sort of unique position um works well for you know organizations much who you know they need marketing but let's be honest most msps don't need a full-time marketing resource right so they need somebody that can come in you know look at the business in its totality um have some robust conversations about what is good um and what is not good but then actually going and going and executing it so that's our little stick cool well thank you and thank you for joining us again Mitch if you don't know Mitch please hi a drum roll H uh I'm Mitch Colton um I own Colton computer Technologies um we're a bog standard MSP based in Central West New South Wales um have I don't know 30 staff we're 19 years old in November um that's yeah that's pretty much us cool well guys thank you for uh for joining us today we will stop the the share and jump straight into it so let me get my notes up here all right so Crystal I'm going to throw this first question to you if that's okay because you are I'm gonna I'm going to treat you as our resident marketing Guru for for today for the hour that we have you can you tell us why you feel that marketing is important for msps I mean I feel like Mitch should actually take that because he's the one Mitch can in he's the one who's in put us look I think you know if we talk about msps and you know a lot of msps in in this industry are our owner lead our owner operated right and you know as a business you can get to a certain point and I think the the phrase that Mitch uses only lad sales will get you to five mil is that that's correct yep he's not 100% yeah but then how do you get to the next stage you know how do you grow your business outside of the network that you've built you know referrals will only get you so far and you know what we're also seeing now in the the buying world is you've got let's you've still got Boomers you know you've got the guys who and I'm gonna about a lot of the MSP guys who are you know the owners who are older generation they've been doing this for years they've built really successful businesses and you've got people who are in those decision-making spots and clients that are the older generation we were just internally having a conversation about how you know we need to go and hire somebody younger who is more of and more comfortable with things like Ai and so you've got I thought you were gonna say Tik Tok well we don't advocate for Tik Tok but we advocate for video but this is the thing right is you've got you know a 56 year old and then you've got sort of a 25y old how they consume content how they research is hugely different now right and you've got you know these gen Zeds coming through who actually until they're ready to purchase don't want to talk to a real person so how do you reach those people in the world that I'm going to ask I grew up you would pick up the phone you have a phone conversation like there's a whole generation that don't answer their phones who don't subscribe to emails like they are getting their information from CH GPT from social media and just the the channels that I'm H never existed when I started in this gig so how do you expect people to know who you are and go searching for you if they don't know who you are at a fundamental level yeah cool Mitch what do you think is important all of that I I remember back to the day I rang KJ the first time not first time but first time about my problem and my problem was we were only at 2.8 mil 2.9 mil something like that our problem was we were really good at engaging with the clients that wanted to engage with us and this goes to exactly what KJ was just talking about but we had a whole pile of clients that didn't actively reach out to engage with us and we wanted to be able to engage with them at one to many level and so our start into why we believe marketing was important was 80% better better engagement with existing clients and you know the The Happy The Happy accident is we'll probably get some new stuff falling the top of the pipeline um you know fast forward that to today same same thing but you know and this goes into you know I guess what we'll probably cover later which is what success looks like which is we get two or three leads just fall out of the sky every month and that's that's the reality of having a good consistent marketing engine is you get some leads that just fall out of the sky and then you go and do your sales thing with them and happy days but I think I think it's just a it's a I know and we sort of had it's the glue it's sort of like you have your operational glue which is your service team and and PS and and all the rest of it but marketing is kind of like your your front end CX glue that sort of ties together between sales account management customer success um you know a whole lot of those different pieces product development and marketing sort of the thing that holds all those things together I think and I also think oh sorry Ben I also think when we talk about and I know that it's it's also a future question and we're just following the bouncing ball at this point but when we talk about a lot of msps and what we say to a lot ofp when we start engaging them with them is we are going to make you as look as professional on the outside as you are on the inside right most msps have built an amazing technical team they are really good at service but you look at their capability statement or their sales collateral you know not going to lie we're starting to work with um an MSP um next month whenn you know partner Awards and alike their capability statement if you put that in front of a gen Zed it's 26 different font sizes and colors and you know it's not if you don't know this organization and you look at that from a brand perspective and polish perspective they're just going to go you can't format a word doc or you can't give me a brochure so how are you going to know how you fix all my problems interesting yeah yeah and and given that more and more of the purchasing decision is being made before they're talking to you that whole what you look like on the outside's getting more and more important I mean guess one of the one of the things we accidentally did that was good marketing back from since forever is we have a fleet of really nice signwritten cars and and even though that's not the thing that usually is the reason you get the client the thing you say is like oh how did you hear about this because you know trying to find out where a lead came from is impossible now and they're like oh we're not sure but cars look nice getting around town and we see them getting around town a lot but it's just another touch and you're right I guess marketing and General is to your point before about being the glue it is more than it's that multi-touch approach right I I know I talked to a lot of msps that join our our topics our um webinars and whatnot on marketing and it's usually purely from a lead generation but it is more than that there's a huge conversation now about also where you should spend your marketing budget brand versus lead gen versus demand gen or whatever you want to call it and that comes back to the you know people say oh we found you on Google but what were they searching for at that time to find you like nine times out of 10 it can be a happy accident people aren't going and searching for colon computers straight off the bat you know they' potentially seen them popped up through social in which case you know all the activities that done have led to people going right I'm now ready to have a conversation so I will Google C they need to have a paino right yeah and when that you can't necessarily control when they're going to well you I guess you could we're in it that's a bit risky but I wouldn't recommend it it's a bad sales strategy um but um you know you they do need that pain point you know but you you need to have that leading Journey so that you're they're ready and they know who to call when they have that paino I often say within hosted network is if a a prospective partner is dealing with someone else I like to say that's okay I'm okay to be your number two because I know eventually you'll give me a call because you're aware of us you know when you need to you know and that's that that applies to all businesses right it's marketing is is much of about awareness as it is lead generation right so starting right at the beginning in that sense um let's assume most people on the call don't have much marketing experience so where do you think they should start I'm assuming that's directed at well I was I was just going to who answered first really I mean I I guess I'll I'll start because I'll tell you a bit of my journey and I think stor always great to my point when we when I when you know in the intros I own what's is a bog standard MSP there's there's two things that are ironic about that there's not many Bob standard msps and no one knows what an MSP is so you know there's the two two problems out of the bat out of the gate um I think one of the big problems certainly you know like when we were small and we started to dabble with marketing it's that are we just doing some advertising are we just doing some sponsorship are we trying to do a lead Genny thing um and it's all very desperate and usually reactive um the biggest problem I see and I see this even across a lot of my clients um there are a lot of marketing marketers around that go we do your social or we're B Toc they don't ever say they're B Toc they say they're marketers but they only do business to Consumer and B Toc is very different to B2B and and we know that in our own businesses because you know I would I'd be interested to see how many people on this call Go On Target end users versus how many people on this call go I don't never want to see another home user ever again and really I just want you know 10 plus seat managed Services clients um and I think you know we we had a we had a you know we started doing the socials thing we started doing you know was was a lot of reactive bitty stuff to see what's stuck and I think the biggest problem there and this is not what to do this is what not to do was it was never long enough and it wasn't the right sort of activity um you know I I I think the biggest you know the the best thing we did was just go we're going to start at a point we're going to throw some money at it we're going to be consistent and we're going to give it 12 or months and then when we get to 10 to 12 or 88 months then we'll look back and go okay what worked what didn't work I I think I think a lot of businesses in general in the space put way too much energy into social media compared to anything else and while social media is part of the mix I don't think it's the main main thing K tell me no I don't think it's a different thing I think the challenge with where to start with marketing is exactly that question is where to start because people get overwhelmed by all the options right and then they go hell F and try to do everything at once and that's why the wheels fall off and they go it's not working and I think it's important that you know my my catchphrase is if there was a civil tap for leads I would be sitting in the Bahamas drinking pina coladas not sitting on this webinar right we are when we come in we are we are up front we are 12 to 18 months before you will see that consistent volume of leads come in because we've got to set the foundations we've got to start now if you can't afford somebody to do it for you or you know you just want to you know give it a go yourself I would say pick something that you know you can be consistent at right and that could be social media right it could be going I am going to do one post a week for the next six months but what I say to people when we talk about that and I have I have that conversation with you know the business owners and they go but it takes so much time I said but if you sit down and you spend two hours writing six posts you can schedule them right that is then not sit and forget because you should probably look at the comments but social media can be this huge black hole because people have not got structure around it they're not saying right I'm going to sit down I'm going to spend two hours if I create six posts great if I create 12 posts great right but those two hours you sit down and you schedule it so you're not constantly having to think about it because then if you get comments you'll get a little notification right but you've got to decide what is achievable you know with Mitch we we honestly we did we started with one blog post a month you know thought leadership um supported by social media and then looked at what we could do around the business chambers that you know were unique to his area that we could look to build the profile of one both Mitch and the business right because and when we're talking owner lead sales those two things are intertwined I'm going to be honest I am an owner lead business I'm trying to disengage myself from the brand of the business to my staff right and this is where we have to get to a point it's also letting go right and going I need to trust somebody to do this for me and that can be scary as when you've been in a business for 10 15 years and it's your baby right and it's just totally and and the thing there too and this is this is the maturity you know operational maturity levels um you know and growing up it's it's you as an owner know your business is backwards upside down inside out you can you elevate a picture without even thinking about it you can talk to a capability statement without even having anything written down you can probably architect a solution on the Fly work out what the client's pain point is wrap it up and say oh yeah that'll be 30 hours on the end he's a quote thanks Dar the end you can't offload that to anyone else like that and nor do you want to offload that to anyone else like that and and this is again back to my marketing glue conversation when when you know what your you know and a lot of the marketing Journey we went on and and are still going on is you know defining Target customer profiles defining what good looks like in a client defining all of those things foundational bits yeah exactly but but you don't usually start with those bits even though the found they're the foundational bits and then like as you grow like like in the four and a half years I've been working with KJ you know we started off as a we were MSP come break fix shop we made the decision probably what two two and a half years ago now we over this course of 18 months big marketing campaign big sales you know account management whatever we dumped 50% of our clients we we went we went in and going we are take this was on the back of like when NCA got announced because that was just like the final straw of let's just we're going here anyway but this is a good time to rip the bandaid of but there was a whole lot of coms to clients about hey we're now going to 100% manag Services these are the reasons why this is why manag services are good for you this is why we're no longer going to do break fix and we want you know we from from the outside you know we did the numbers internally and going we're going to burn a lot of clients here but from the outside it was all we want to take everyone on this journey with us and this is the journey we're going on and if you want to come with us we would love to have you but if you don't and that's totally fine you know we'll help you find a home that's more suited to you but and we we'd identified clients also that we thought we're not going to react well to that and kick up a fuss you know so we we spoke to them first you know to kind of smooth the waters they all jumped on board right in terms of move to manage services when we didn't but you're always learning by mistakes marketing is not is not a paint by numbers you you know if I look at a marketing budget and I apologize in advance there is a little bit of profanity about to come but we split it up oh I haven't got started yet would be great into thirds you've got a third of the budget that goes on things that you know that work and you will continue to do then you've got a third that kind of sits on that bubble you're not entirely sure but you've probably got somebody who goes this really works but you haven't trapped it properly so you've got things that are on you on the bubble and then you've got what we call the it we're going to give it a go budget right because it's something so different so left a field but unless you try how do you know whether it's going to work or not and some of those left a field ideas can turn out to be the most successful I often refer to it just as putting a steak in the ground you kind of just need to and then learn yeah fail learn and just that cycle repeats we actually afraid to fail fast well that yeah fail fast 100% it's a cycle with and that's the same with everything right you look at whether it's a service desk process you know the getting your text to log time sheets it's the same thing you kind of learn as you go um you know that's a whole another can worms which we won't go into today because it's a sour SP for everyone we've been there um we've got a question here so what is a and uh this is for you Mitch uh what is a reasonable marketing budget and what was your criteria that made you sign up I'm I'm assuming that's with with uh with Crystal but yeah what was your marketing budget well how did you come up with it like and the reality is when when most people start in marketing there are no tangible outcomes like and that's half I think that's half battle that we we struggle with um I mean I'm in I'm in it Nation evolve um you know we get all the SLI stats on what percentages you meant to spend on what and all the rest of it now and and sort of now we can track it but at the time you know and when most people start out it's like you know it's like give it a go yeah yeah um but look I would say I would say now you know I'm and I'm looking back more with a a mature grownup view of this it's it's something that you can afford that is reasonable in saying that I wouldn't I wouldn't even bother getting started if you can't throw at least 1,500 bucks a month at it th000 bucks a month at it um because but you've got to pick a number that that you can say go I can I can afford to spend this amount of money every month for the next 12 to 18 months and get back for it um and I think it comes to also the value that you perceive from it like MIT the th000 Bucks a a month and I go I don't know what you would get for a thousand bucks a month if I sort of if I break it down but there are providers out there that will go and you pay a subscription service and they will say here you go here is content for a th000 bucks a month right but that content is not written to your tone of voice it has not got what your unique selling proposition or your differentiator and it like it's it's factory content you will always find a solution that works for the budget that you've got because there is doesn't matter what industry we're in MSP fa there is always a race to the bottom there's always someone that will do yeah there's always someone that's going to do $30 a month manage services yeah you want to be that person yeah no why I think the other piece of it when you talk about that factory content as well if you are looking at going on the lower end of your budget is like David vidos has just posted the the commentary um that you've got a whole bunch of other msps that are doing the exact same thing and I would say and you know I guess I accidentally was doing this from ages ago and now I I don't accidentally do it I deliberately do it and and I was talking to some guys an edge last week about it um I think one of the best things you know certainly one of the best things that's that that I've done and and of disclimer here on the vice president of the orange business chamber so of conflict of interest sign up to your local business chamber it's not a bnii group that's different that's out of the scope of today's conversation um but join up to your local business chamber get involved in your business community and don't walk in there being like when are you going to buy something from me you just go there and be a part of a community because fundamentally consistency consist consistently attend be part of a community yeah this is the biggest thing in marketing do it consistently but you're getting your brand out there you're becoming known um you know and and going back to what um KJ was saying before you know like your your it give it a go bucket we went it we're going to go and put on some exact lunches we've got a our insurance broker and I do a fair bit of collaborative marketing stuff and we just went we're going to put on a lunch for you know 10 to 16 people at a nice restaurant in town bring them in sit them down and we're just going to have a chat you know Levi who's my insurance broker he's got a list of things that he wants to talk about I have a list of things I'd like to talk about at the end of the day it's pretty much it current affairs we just invite some clients and Prospects we have a lunch it that is like one of the best things that we've done and that was like I just give it a go um yeah and I think the hardest thing you know being a marketeer is that I I constantly saying you need to be prepared to give nothing sorry you need to be prepared to give value for nothing expecting nothing in return right because this is the process right this is building trust this is building your brand you know the minute this comes like people still want to gate content we all know what happens with our email address right as soon as we put it into a form I try I actively but yes I'm a marketeer will'll go and see if I can find that without a gate that's actually a lesson that we faced with our our marketing is and we we did content um big in white papers around the co period and we we put it behind a gate and we were like in the end we were like why we want people to read it get it out there more you know and it's it's but that's a lesson right you learn that as you go um guys I want to pull back a little bit to the the the topic of thought leadership um Crystal you mentioned before that most msps are own Le organizations and you're 100% right um that brand is not just the business it's them yes so how do the techy owner Le you know organizations become you know a thought leader that is not seen as The Tech Guy or maybe that's a good thing well I was gonna say that could that could be a good thing and Mitch never believes me but I am I'm actually I am always get a back front an introverted extrovert so I am the type of person that like this week I'm at conference like I will not talk to anybody except my husband because kind of contractually I'm obliged to do that over the weekend but I did a presentation with at Evol I hate getting up in front of people right I know my industry inside and out but as an owner and a business I know that that is what I need to do and one of our Core Company values is get comfortable with the uncomfortable right and that's where it comes back to what can you do that is consistent is it you know if you don't want to be in large groups of people is it building a social profile you know and simple things like every time you meet a person I do it send them a connection request on LinkedIn so they will start to see your content or if you are a true extrovert it is going to every business chamber meeting once a month but also find a perspective and stick to it like what is your position on XY Z right um you know for for us it is very much that you know if you look at my LinkedIn it is that this marketing is hard right selling it to business owners that you need to invest in us for 12 to 18 months before you get a real return why would you like everybody goes go I can call a engage a teley marketing company who will give me you know 20 leads let's not talk about the quality of the leads but coming back to that you know that thought leadership is what is your perspective what can you build your profile on and start engaging with people on either debating that you know because a good healthy robust debate is a great thing or that you get into a room with you know three or four you know other business owners like Mitch has done with you know the insurance broker going right we're talking about cyber but you need the insurance piece of it as well you know just find that thing that you're also a bit passionate about and it doesn't necessarily have to be Tech related yeah for me I hate social media I suck at it it takes me I every time I post I reckon I rewrite it about 10 times even chat GPT doesn't help me I struggle I'm social media I'm absolutely terrible at it I'm G pick up the phone and go and see people and and that's our generation as well though right like you know Crystal you mentioned before that you know we and but now we've got to start marketing and you know selling to a broad spectrum of people that becomes more and more um difficult Mitch can you tell us a little bit about your journey but in terms of becoming a thought leader like within your because I see you're heavily involved in your community it's it's you know how did you start that it's being KJ's point it's just being passionate like I was I was in Duo yesterday at a business chamber event the morning um and then I went and saw a client and and you know we were sitting doing I guess a a bit of a it strategy session but really it was interesting because the and this has purpose so bear with me here so my account manager got a phone call from their it contact this morning being like we have never seen our CEO give an external contractor that much time before ever in the history of ever we went into a meeting we sat there for an hour and a half and what I would call shop the sh but the reality was it was me debriefing on what I'd seen at Edge last week it was me debriefing on what I'd seen in data security and compliance space it was talking about you know some workflow automation stuff that that that I've seen that's coming was talking about you know what's happening in the economy in Duo what am I seeing in Orange what's going on in the the you know the business landscape in general and but those are all topics that I'm very passionate about talking about and the thing is even though you're in it every day and you know like to KJ's Point you're in marketing every single day and you're in the it Channel every single day it becomes normal to you and things that you hear and say and you're like oh yeah yeah I'm hearing that for the 56th time your clients and your prospects are not in those industries that are not exposed to that and they're fascinated by it and and you know I think I think that's I guess that's the cination of it but you know the the reality of it like and one of the the things I still get the most Joy out of you know of my MSP is just going and looking in the side of other businesses and being like Oh how does that work o why do you do that oh that looks cool oh and and and it's having a genuine interest and then you you help people solve problems or you give another perspective you know and I love a good debate as much as the next person and I think it's just you know it's it's consistency really um my my problem is now how do I scale that in more one to many instead of like that one: one one: two one: three it's it's how do I get that into one to many but did that answer the question I think it did so my my takeway is you know from that obviously consistency so far we've covered that you know heavily and I think from a cost perspective looking at things like Chambers and whatnot that's a good place to start and I think what you're fundamentally 200 bucks 250 bucks a year like it's the cheapest it's the cheapest just starting there yeah exactly but consistency is important but I I think I think that my other takeaway from what You' just said is have a business conversation not necessarily it doesn't always have to have it they're they're to you know everyone's you know you're in business they've got pain points you've got pay points just have you know that alone ground and and I think I think you know I think two two things and this is like the It specific side of it business owners are gener and let's just assume and hope that they do they'd like they're happy to talk about risk they understand risk no one cares like not that they don't care but they don't understand and they can't connect with cyber and remember you're in an industry like to KJ's Point marketing's hard because I'm selling someone to give me money and a fair bit of money consistently every month bright months with no return potentially um we're going hey buy some more security controls buy some more security controls buy some more security controls oh then you've still got to get Cyber insurance and then you're still probably going to get hacked and we still need to going to charge you to gun Dr and the clean up and the inate response so that's not sexy that's not exciting people don't like talking about that but you start talking about yeah business risk opportunities what's going on in the market and all of that and then when you're having those conversations you're working out oh oh that's like 2 days of PS Consulting there and oh there's a project and oh there's a thing and oh there's a thing thing and and when you go and talk to the client or or you know the prospect comes to you or you're talking to an existing client and they're like oh so what do you reom when they to do for the next quarter it's like well I've talked to you for the last you know three quarters about a c and d which ones the most important oh okay a sweet I reckon we can do 1 two 3 four five that really this sorry you go I was gonna say um but I think that also comes back to you have to be your own biggest research Advocate right in terms of consuming content finding a position you know don't need to name the name the two vendors that have had issues in the last two weeks but it is my job to understand the consequences that that will have and we even you know I shared as soon as I saw it the medidi bank ruling in terms of you know the government came out and named the the MSP that was in it you know what are the consequences of that for our industry like that is that is huge and if I don't know what that is all fool me right and I go every MSP should be reading the notifiable data breach reports that come out you know every six months and going right which vertical is currently flavored aour for haers how do I take that message to my clients you're not saying oh because you're in health you need to do XYZ you're going you should be aware that this is the industry that is being targeted you know there is so much information out there for you to you know pitch a in and go this is what I'm going to talk about consistently and and I think it all ties together because we get a lot and we get it from the Tex as well as myself we go and talk to clients about you know we have our conversations with clients or at business CH meetings or whatever and a lot of that is what drives our blog content because we we go oh I've had six conversations you know with a client about data data retention I'm looking I'm literally I'm looking at my blog but you know we're talking about where data lives data retention you know retention policies how much stuff should we keep like we're having a allot of those conversations it's like well there's next month's blog yeah I mean one blog content so much came out because we are also a of Mitch Mitch is also this is not an incestous all it's it it always is which is MSP I went to share a file externally with um a vendor because it was MDF reporting and I wasn't going to email it because it contained pii it contained a recipient's email address and I ped Mitch and I went why can't I share he goes oh yeah microsof to change the rules I was like that's um how how do I share data he goes oh we can change and I went yeah that was the answer was put a ticket in and we'll change your but I said to match how many organizations would not pick up the phone and just go I can't share that so I'm going to email that yeah right healthc care legal and then they email it to the wrong person the number of I don't I don't think my name is you know particularly common but the number of emails I'm starting to get that start with the name of kri where I go back to these people and go I don't think this is meant for me um but that's human eror right so that became a blog post because it's I've picked up the phone and G wait I think the other side of it is as well that you don't necessarily have to be you can be the conversation starter you know and asking the question you know whether you know the answer already in most cases whether you're in person or whether you're or you know it's on social media oh I wonder how this is going to turn out I think those sort of being that thought leader you know and that I think that for you know the the more introverted personalities that that's often an easier approach rather than sort of going this is my big opinion you don't always have to do that you can just be part of the conversation um guys moving on the conversation a little bit speaking of conversations um the we've talked a few things around what works and I want to sort of hopefully touch on a few tidbits around that because but just quickly what are some of the things that you would if they if an MSP was or any business that they should avoid when if they're starting out what are the what are the time and the money syncs Google ads cool yep I I was going to say big one-off sponsorships for things or yeah like if you go pour a shitload of money and sponsoring an event that you think's going to be good don't if you don't have all the rest of the stuff lined up to actually get value out of that spend and that's probably where you're going with advertising in general isn't it KJ yeah because Google ads LinkedIn ads like since Co the cost per has just gone through the roof and that is where yeah um and that is where unfortunately you need to learn by experience and it's a very expensive experience to learn what's working and what's not anyone on that's had a um had a a bad experience with paper click I'd love to put a comment in the in the chat if you wouldn't mind just out of curiosity I um if anyone's had a win I'd love to hear that too um there's a question about the metric now like Google analytics for well yeah that ties into that quite nicely right so um why beyond the cost is the is is paper click would be why would that be a bad approach approach crystal in your in your mind I think because one it is hugely competitive right and Google full disclaimer we don't do SEO right it is it is a specialist skill but I say we know enough to be to be dangerous and hold you know SEO agencies to account and I've also got to be honest in the nearly six years that I've been doing this I have not yet found a good consistent SEO Agency for B to be that doesn't charge a retainer of 5 grand a month to get up just in the morning right yeah SEO you know everybody goes well I'm just going to go manage service provider Newcastle who's looking for a managed service provider as a Google like think about how when you Google something that's not what you're looking for right and so that's the common mistake that people make is I'm going to pay for words that I use that I think right and that's when you go you need to put your customer head on and go what am I going to get from this right and if you've done your organic SEO right you shouldn't need paper click um Mitch from your side you mentioned sponsorships and we certainly um coming out of Co we I mean hosted Network we threw a bunch of money on uh at sponsorships and we certainly we just tried to see what's stuck and learn very quickly we had a year of we knew we were going into it a year of uh this is going to suck let's see what we're going to learn but why in your mind sponsorships a bad idea I think sponsorships initially sponsorships are great idea cool um I think the problem is and I see a lot of businesses do this and I see this from the being on the other side like running events through the chamber and you know looking for sponsorship and you see some like I guess startup smaller businesses and they'll come and they'll take like the $5,000 a hit $7,000 a hit sponsorship slot that's it that's all they do they think that they do that and they'll get leads at the end they might but the reality is you know when you're doing sponsorship you're doing it for you know in the KJ's Point like it's it's brand awareness activity but you need to be doing it as part of a larger mix because you know you need what is it KJ 17 touches yeah so if you've blown you know if you say you're a small MSP and this gets back into the dollars right and you say I've got $20,000 a year let's say 25 Grand 24 because it's a good number for for year 24 Grand a year to spend on marketing and advertising and I go and blow $115,000 of that sponsoring three events I got nothing else like I don't have a lot of money to spend on anything else for the year and I'm not going to see Roi on that where whereas you're better off to be taking the $1,500 sponsorship slot on you know your local business Awards or your whatever because your logo is still there like it's not that big but it's that big but you you you know you only spend an eighth of your less than an eighth but you know you only spend a 12th of your budget we're in it we're not in maths that's okay no that's fine but point it's where you choose where you are in your maturity cycle whether events are a good thing or not so we've got one client new logo new messaging new website new marketing CRM processes in their sales tool that means that for the back half of the year we are event sponsorship heavy because we want to collect new names but we are very clear that those new names will not turn into revenue for 24 months potentially because that is the first touch is that event you still then need to build the trust and you need to follow up so there has to be structure whereas if you go and do the event the first thing and you don't have a good website you don't have collateral you don't have strategy where people can find you then you've just blown that money so foundational components are important before you kind of get there yeah yeah we interesting step from from ourside to to share what we we track you know a lot of what we do in marketing very closely um we find it typically takes between 3 to four intera actions through a sponsorship right in addition to everything else so that's 17 touch points is totally true and that's that's you know obviously msps but realistically we're all businesses you know and that's a lot of the time it's not it's just being you know face to face it's that interaction it's seeing the car on the road in Mitch's example you know those things that they add up yeah and it's also important to talk about the fact that you're not just talking to one person in an organization we're talking about those larger scale purchases which you know employing an MSP are that buying group can be anywhere from four to five people to nine people you know and when we're we're talking to msps you know um and they may not be on on the school but you know I was talking to an MSP you know about our services their buying group was four people and I had to convince four people like I had one conversation with one guy who's like yep great and then found out that no actually I needed to go and meet and convince all these people in this one business that we were a good investment I remember when we ran out MSP I often said to um our team I was like keep the office manager and the receptionist on side because they were basically the ones that were going to make or break if we didn't keep them happy it didn't matter whether you know if we were only interacting with the owner the decision makers and those influencers so a lot of other layers that we don't necessarily think about um guys we haven't got through half the questions that I wanted to but we um can we just talk a little bit I'm not even talking we've gotten through uh 1/8 Mitch is that where we're going 1/8 anyway um seven maths again who knows um we talked a little bit about uh tooling very briefly there from a foundational and you don't have to sort of go into particular products um but what are the key types of things in terms of tooling that a business whether it's an MSP or not needs from a marketing perspective rock paper scissors who goes first yeah Crystal I'm gonna trck it to Crystal there you go I should MC more um so without going into names this is pure marketing hat right this is not sales hat you need to be able to you know look at the performance and they they're sort of almost a suite of tools and there was a question about Google analytics right so yes I mean by default if you should have Google analytics like if if if you don't you're fouling at the first first hurdle but you need to be looking at things like dwell time you need to be looking at returning visitors because and you need to be looking at your bounce rate right those are the the three functional Google analytics metrics you should be looking at because they're telling you how and people are spending on your site your balce R is with there are actually people who are coming to your site for the right reasons you know in terms of they've Googled something they think you're it oh you're not and so they they bounce they bounce out returning visitors tells you that people are interested in what you're doing right from there you should have an email marketing tool and whether you choose to combine that with your service test tool or not you know there are you know every whether it's um you know datto whether it's connect they've all got marketing plugins you can all send critical coms yeah some are less than others yeah yes very ni but you need to be able to have a way to communicate with your clients and what I would say is if you've got a marketing CRM and we talk a lot about first party data you can start to build profiles of who is you know visiting your site because they've clicked on one email somewhere along it's that tracking it's that building that first first party data what that does need to feed into and they can be two separate systems or if you've got a ton of money you can go get hub spot um where your leads automatically flow into the sales process um or you have a robust handoff process but you know from a marketing perspective you know Mitch's got I'm going to ask two disparate systems but we make it work right and so we've got we've got a marketing CRM and then everything else sits in connectwise but there is a lead sort of Handover we know how many you know how many phone calls M's getting because we have that dialogue going backwards and forwards but Google analytics if you've got a marketing CRM you know you can you can get cheaper crms for like 20 25 bucks a month that allow you to put a tracking pixel on your own website that means collecting your own data in terms of you know returning visitors building Behavior profiles and Alik and you do need a sales here cool Mitch I'm hoping you can add a little bit around the sales so I extend that we we're actually doing a lot of work like following along from KJ said there from between marketing salum and then we're at the point now because we're building our sales team now um about and at the moment we we're sort of fleshing out in what we're doing in Connect wise from the from the sales process through um but building a fair bit of automation backwards and forwards between the two CRM so that we get the right data flowing through and then likewise you know if a client off boards or staff members leave or whatever we need to push that back to the marketing CRM so we're not sending coms we don't want to send to the wrong places um look that's probably just from a base tooling point of view that's that's about it really we um uh we often see a lot of people working at a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet a suitable place to start is that okay you've got to start somewhere right I'm not gonna I'm not gonna judge right and you know something's better than anything like I used to track leads you know and sales leads until like three months ago I have my personal one note that I live out of every day and I literally have a column in the middle called sales leads and I have a list of companies person the last time I talked to them which if you're a soul person and you know you don't have a sales team that's totally appropriate I am I am the Builder's house I have a whiteboard with a list of my prospective customers in my waight list and I run well right yeah right yeah so guys we we have um seven minutes or so um so not too long uh but uh practical tips or closing tips from each of you if um even if we're recapping a couple of things Mitch what would you think the what are your kind of closing tips or recommendations certainly like when you're in uned sales land networking will get you you know more bang for buck as an owner you know building your thought leaderships that does more to help build your foundation for when you grow up and you can go and get a good agency than anything else will and and it doesn't just stop there and be consistency like consistency consistency consistency that's that's Mitch's magic magic source to marketing I Mitch's magic SCE yeah so why one take away as we move along is everybody's everybody's got to start somewhere you know you can be overwhelmed by marketing you know just pick one thing to start with right and become good at it whether it is that you know thought leadership position and you know that's what you're talking about whether it's social media whether it is you know doing you know one blog post or one email to your customers a month like just break it down it's like that you know those those sort of motivational things you see where there's like a whole bunch of stairs and they go it's not the end goal it's just taking that one that one step because that's all it takes to start and then when you see what happens because of that you feel motivated you feel this is actually worth it like you know and I think the only other thing I would say about social media is don't get hung up on likes right it is Impressions it is you know and you know the LinkedIn algorithm will reward you more the more you post if you are consistent you know and you get this little motivational thing going hey your impressions took off by 1300% this mon that you go look at me right but that just happens because you're consistently posting Right add to the the social media piece of it is as well particularly LinkedIn um think of everything as a database people that you interact with be a chamber or networking events add them to link in because if when you do post and things like that you're getting more coverage M you were G to add something I I was going to say and it's and it's sort of to to KJ's point about reward the the the best thing the thing the two things that make me the happiest about my marketing is the fact that I only get two or three leads a month from marketing but me they are TCP on exactly what I want and then from a sales point of view if I close one of the three or one and a half of the three like you know that's feeding ourselves Pipeline and is awesome the second thing is it's so much easier when you're talking to prospects and from I'm putting my sales hat on now and and you get through the sales when you've got you know four years of really good blog posts and you can just be like oh hey we were talking about this thing Link Link Link talk about this thing Link Link have a read have a read because the read will get the client or the prospect you know to I guess a base level of understanding and then you can add so much more value in your conversations it's really good positioning you know promotes thought leadership all the rest of it compounds over time right it's kind of like a word of mouth right the longer you've been in business more the clients you've got it kind of compounds over time um guys we are nearly at time but we've got a great compliment here that this should be a podcast it is but that this should be an MSP marketing podcast so there you go um speaking of podcasts though is there any resources that you would recommend that the audience can go that you guys like to to follow whether it be podcasts or great books or anything like that so there is a guy by the name of uh Dave Gearhart I think that's how you pronounce it anyway so he has up and he's calling it a media company it's called exit 5 you can find it by Googling you can find it on LinkedIn Point yeah it is all B2B marketing advice right so he gets experts along you know different you know different Industries um but in terms of tips what they're saying well that is great um I also really like um Steve Kenan I really like the Canalis research like in terms of what's going on in the industry spending you know spending guidelines um Trends buying patterns Etc um you can just give Steven Kon and My Name Escapes me right now but there are a couple of guys uh Jay mcbang who I follow on LinkedIn for just you know that down in the weeds they are a channel research company cool Mitch um just for your topical upd today um I listen to the business of tech just because I my commute to work is about 7 Minutes the podcast goes for 7 minutes and that's my headlines for the day cool well guys um thank you very very much um today I've really enjoyed today's chat I'm always a uh love talking marketing um we have a bunch of different marketing ones that we've done over the over the years uh so feel free to check out our events page on our website you'll see all of our previous msps in conversation there um the whether it be about improving customer experience building great teams all sorts of topics um uh it is also a website now we've turned it into a website msps in conversation.com which we are doing a terrible job of marketing which um I will have to listen back to some of these tips but Crystal and Mitch thank you so much for joining us it's been an absolute pleasure guys until next time thank you thank you